An In-depth Analysis of Consumer Behaviour in Passenger Car Purchase Decision-Making Process. Factors, Impacts and Consequences for the Automotive Industry

Abstract

Automotive industry was described as a constantly changing and evolving field. For decades it was developing more and more advanced technologies in vehicle manufacturing that ensured the production of reliable and powerful vehicles. Vehicles became not only a transportation source but also the source of confidence for many citizens. In the recent years, more environmentally friendly vehicles were demanded by customers. As well, behaviour of the customers in the car purchasing process was changed due to the newly emerging factors these changes were influenced with. The tasks for the automotive industry were to understand what brought the changes of the customer behaviour and how the decision-making process of customers was influenced by multiple internal and external factors. The objectives included careful understanding of the customer decision-making process and the future its future tendencies. Implementation included quantitative data analysis and survey data collection method was utilised to gather the information from the car owner or people with experience in the car purchasing process. The exploratory research was made with a deductive approach. The changes and tendencies of different groups of customers’ behaviour were represented in the results. The customers were divided based on the gender characteristics in order to better understand the correlations with the results of the research. After the analysis it was revealed that customers willing to switch to the electric vehicles due to the increasing pollution to the environment from traditional vehicles. Brand and car market were stated as the influencing characteristics in car purchase decision-making process. Reasonable conclusions were drawn based on the results of the data analysis and recommendations for companies and car dealerships were stated.